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15 Shocking Pics That Prove Star Wars Was A Rip-Off

In its individual pieces, Star Wars is not a very original work of art. Then again, what story really is when it's broken down. That being said, George Lucas has always been very upfront about his influences. It's possible to go through and identify explicit influences from the past in almost every scene in the Star Wars films. Lucas doesn't try to shy away from these influences. Instead, he often embraces them, even including little tributes or references to the films that he's drawing from. There are many examples of plot points being borrowed or referenced throughout the saga, but we will focus on the clear cut ones. Think of Star Wars as a collage and we're going to peel back each of the individual components.

With each of these scenes or story elements, it becomes obvious that Lucas is a man that creates stories like an architect, taking little sequences that have been created by others and compiling them into a new structure. If Lucas wasn't so open about his influences, many people might question his methods a bit, but he's not alone in his methods. Many directors openly build on the shoulders of those who came before them (see Quentin Tarantino). These types see film as a collaborative process. Really all storytelling is a collaborative process, at least under a postmodern framework it is. To feel completely original is equal to feeling completely naïve. So let's not shame them; lets celebrate these stolen/borrowed scenes. Were going to take a look at 15 examples of Star Wars plot points that we’ve seen before, in something you could also call 15 Star Wars plot points that were stolen from elsewhere… Dun-Dun-Duuuun!

8 Metropolis

7 The Godfather

6 Lost Horizon

5 The Dam Busters

4 Dune

via boards.theforce.net

3 The Hidden Fortress

via criterioncollection.tumblr.com

2 New Gods Saga

via www.comicscube.com

1 Flash Gordon Serials

via starwars.wikia.com

George Lucas' big pitch, prior to Star Wars, was to recreate the Flash Gordon story for the big screen. It wasn't until he was unable to acquire the rights that Lucas decided to create his own story, Star Wars, but many of those original Flash Gordon ideas stuck around. Take, for example, the Cloud City which is a lot like Flash Gordon's Court of the Skymen, Chewbacca is similar to Prince Thun, several of the monsters and space technology is based on Flash Gordon and even the upwards title crawl is borrowed from it. The major plot point that was stolen (then acknowledged) is the hero's infiltration of the enemy base in costume (Luke Skywalker and Han Solo), which is directly taken from Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe when a costumed Flash Gordon and Prince Barin enter Ming's fortress.